YORK’S panto dame has thrown his weight behind a campaign to get one of the country’s most famous contemporary artists to the city.

Berwick Kaler has welcomed the Yorkshire Museum’s “Curator of Cuddles” Padmin Bear to the Theatre Royal, to help the museum in its bid to win a visit from Grayson Perry.

The Yorkshire Museum is competing against three London museums – the Freud Museum, Courtauld Gallery and the Museum of Soho – to win a visit from the Turner Prize-winning potter for the Museums at Night event in May.

With 45 percent of the vote in an online ballot, it is currently just ahead of the Courthauld Gallery, and museum staff are desperate to make it into first place.

The museum needs public votes to ensure the artist and his childhood teddy bear and muse, Alan Measles, come to take part in a night of teddy bear hide and seek at the attraction, featuring bears in the museum's collection.

The artist liked the idea of a giant game of teddy bear hide and seek so much he included the museum in his shortlist of museums he may visit as part of a unique Museums at Night event in May.

The museum’s Mike Linstead, E-communications co-ordinator, said: “Our curator of cuddles was delighted to get a hug from such an iconic Yorkshire figure as Dame Berwick Kaler. He could bear-ly contain his excitement! Now all we need is for people to go to the Culture24 website and vote for the Yorkshire Museum to win a visit from the fantastic Grayson Perry.”

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